rockaction, I do not regard you as a bigot or homophobic. Your responses are far too intelligent to make that insulting assumption, and I would never do so. But I do believe that you, for whatever reason, are giving much too much of a libertarian regard to this particular issue when it's out of place in context of greater issues. Let's look at your concerns, one by one:
1. Private conscience IS important. Some of my friends back in college boycotted Coke for dealing with Apartheid South Africa, and that's fine. But in terms of offering products to the general public, we cannot allow for discrimination based on private conscience, IMO. In a 100% libertarian society, I could refuse someone service because they were black or Chinese or Muslim. It would entirely be MY decision. But I don't want to live in a society like that; do you?
2. It seems to me that the political activism came, in this instance, from the writers of this bill. Furthermore, in past years, opposition to gay issues has garnered much more political activism than the other side. In 2004, it heavily influenced the result of a presidential election. So I think blaming the pro-gay side for pushing these issues is ill-thought out and just plain wrong.
3. If by "personal", you mean that anti-homosexuality is increasingly being perceived by our society as an objective wrong, then to me that's a positive, or at least far better than the opposite. (a) I don't agree with Andrew Sullivan's absolutism on this issue. Several times in this forum I have defended opponents on gay issues as not necessarily bigoted. However, I think this is a really minor concern. (b) Beavers was being facetious. You seem a lot angrier than she did.
4. Actually people start topics on the increase in government all the time. The issue of Obamacare has dominated political discussion in this forum for the past several years, and the entire essence of that discussion regards the growth of the federal government. Compared to that, this issue is extremely minor (so far as the growth of government power is concerned.)
Finally, it depends which elements of the New Deal you want to roll back, and, just as importantly, how it can be done without causing too much pain to existing situations. I'm sure some would suggest you a loon; not me. This type of forum is the perfect place to have such a discussion IMO, and in fact we've had many.